A House Divided, and Other Presidential Speeches About the Jews

In the video statement she issued this week, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin accused the media of manufacturing a “blood libel.” Her choice of words quickly became the story—”blood libel” refers to the cruel and absurd medieval belief that Jews used the blood of Christian children to bake matzo.

Many wonder how the gaffe will affect Palin’s future, with USA Todayasking, “Will Sarah Palin’s use of the term ‘blood libel’ hurt her chances if she decides to run for president in 2012?”

It is an ironic question considering how many of our Presidents’ great moments of rhetoric were, in fact, allusions to far-fetched beliefs about the Jews:

• When a young U.S. Senate nominee named Abraham Lincoln warned, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” he was referring to the then widespread misconception that Kosher households, burdened with two kitchens, one for meat and one for dairy, led to architectural problems which often caused the homes to collapse.

• Ulysses S. Grant is often remembered for saying, “There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.” Misconstrued as a sentiment against war, the statement was actually Grant’s address to American Jews, who, it was believed, used out-of-commission Civil War weaponry to perform circumcisions.

But it is not simply a nineteenth-century phenomenon.

• “Speak softly and carry a big stick” was Theodore Roosevelt’s way of reminding himself to live like the biblical Moses, who had a speech impediment and carried a large staff. At the time, many Christians mistakenly believed that after liberating the Jews from Egypt, Moses invaded Cuba and wore a monocle.

• We remember Franklin D. Roosevelt and his noble stand against fascism, “We … would rather die on our feet than live on our knees,” but the phrase actually refers to the nineteenth-century belief that inbreeding had caused Ashkenazi Jews to have knees where their feet should be and vice-versa.

• On a number of occasions, John F. Kennedy used the phrase “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Intended to express the idea that improvements to the economy help everyone, it was originally code for economically excluding the Jews, who, it was correctly believed, couldn’t sail.

• Finally, in 1971, Richard Nixon said, “The Jews are born spies.” Modern scholars suspect this may in some way refer to mistaken beliefs about the Jews, but their work is inconclusive.